EGU21-857, updated on 03 Mar 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-857
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

EstSoil-EH - Developing a high-resolution eco-hydrological modelling parameters dataset for Estonia

Alexander Kmoch1, Arno Kanal1, Alar Astover2, Ain Kull1, Holger Virro1, Aveliina Helm3, Meelis Pärtel3, Ivika Ostonen1, and Evelyn Uuemaa1
Alexander Kmoch et al.
  • 1University of Tartu, Department of Geography, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Tartu, Estonia (alexander.kmoch@ut.ee)
  • 2Estonian University of Life Sciences, Chair of Soil Science, Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Fr.R. Kreutzwaldi 5, Tartu, 51014, Estonia
  • 3University of Tartu, Department of Botany, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Lai 40, Tartu, 51005, Estonia

To understand, model and predict landscape evolution, ecosystem services and hydrological processes the availability of detailed observation-based soil data is extremely valuable. Estonia has a national digitized soil map based on decades of Soviet era field mapping. It maps more than 750 000 soil units throughout Estonia at a scale of 1:10 000 - with 75% of mapped units smaller than 4.0 ha. However, due to the way it was recorded the data is not immediately useful for numerical modelling. We synthesized the EstSoil-EH dataset - more than 20 eco-hydrological variables on soil, topography and land use for Estonia as numerical and categorical values - using data fusion and machine learning.
As additional feature information we used a 5m DEM, the Estonian Topographic Database, and EU-SoilHydroGrids layers. For each soil unit, we analysed type, texture, and layer information from the originally recorded composite text-based soil information, which contains the actual texture class, classifiers for rock content, peat soils, distinct compositional layers, and their depths. Subsequently, we derived soil layering, clay, silt, and sand contents and coarse fragments of the soil layers. In addition, we aggregated and predicted physical variables related to water and carbon cycles (bulk density, hydraulic conductivity, organic carbon content, available water capacity). We validated our modelled data and achieved satisfying degrees of agreement depending on the variables type.

How to cite: Kmoch, A., Kanal, A., Astover, A., Kull, A., Virro, H., Helm, A., Pärtel, M., Ostonen, I., and Uuemaa, E.: EstSoil-EH - Developing a high-resolution eco-hydrological modelling parameters dataset for Estonia, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-857, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-857, 2021.